


Dream

by a_mind_at_work (Madame_Marauder)



Series: Beli3ver 'verse [12]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Dissociation, F/M, Going Nonverbal, Grief, Heavy Angst with a hopeful ending, M/M, Other, Panic Attacks, and paranoid amounts for trigger warnings for:, emotional breakdowns, slight survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 00:30:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame_Marauder/pseuds/a_mind_at_work
Summary: It's his son's birthday.Or, it ought to be.(the tags are a mess but should be heeded. the rest of the series can be read without this.)





	Dream

   “He's not himself,” Alexander can hear John say. And, of course he isn't. On any other day of any other month, there'd not be a locked door between him and his lover, or a date on the calendar furiously scratched out in black ink. Black ink, mourning ink, mourning black, mourning day. It works, terribly enough.

    Betsey says something in reply, surely, and- oh. Here he goes again, those fragile and wavering lines that divide his lives blurring like ink wet with tears, like blood watered-down by their sobs mingling with it on his chest-

    God, he hates this. Normally, he blends so seamlessly, so much neater than Thomas and Jefferson, but today,  _ today _ , he's being torn in half by past and present, both sides ringing with utter grief. Of all the sorrows, the sadness, the pains and horrors, this is the one that shatters him. This is the one that forces him to stop. He weeps for one most of all, of course, but his tears are for more, for all, for all of the mistakes and ruins and cruelties he's left singing in his wake, the hurricane that he is.

     “I've never seen him like this,” John says, nearer now. Slumped against the other side of the door, likely.

     But this time Eliza’s response is audible, and it makes him wince. “Because last time, he was like this twice,” she replies. Her voice sounds hoarse and raw, and Alex’s heart aches with the sudden need to be by her side. “You were dead for both instances. You being dead  _ was _ the first instance.”

     “Oh.”

_ Oh _ , like Hamilton wouldn't weep for days at the loss of his dear Laurens, like he wouldn't lose the words always sprouting so ready on his tongue, like he wouldn't break utterly for weeks, like his fire wouldn't sputter out to embers barely rekindled to their usual heat. As if he could have accepted the painful, horrible, heartbreaking news with any measure of dignity or calm. As  _ if _ .

     He can hear a few muffled words from Angelica in the background, and Eliza exhales shakily, says something indistinct.

     She's shaken too, he can tell, shattering, feeling that strange disconnect when the lives became unsynchronized, unbalanced. If this is what Thomas has to go through every day, or at least often, Alexander has a whole new respect for him.

     There's surely a proper term for this particular type of shatterpoint in and of itself, but so long as this disunity is a rare occurrence, there's nothing to be concerned with. A mourning-induced shatterpoint is common; that doesn't make the waves of shuddering grief and sorrow and terrible, terrible  _ guilt _ any more bearable.

     Time is odd right now, and it feels like seconds and it feels like days between John’s head resting against the door and a knock on the same. But it's not John’s whispered, wavering voice that sounds on the other side of the wood.

     “My Hamilton,” Eliza says softly, pained and hushed and drowning in sorrow.

     He does scramble to open the door then, because whatever he might be feeling, whatever storm his heart and mind might be in,  _ his wife needs him. _ “Betsey,” he offers quietly, his voice already scratchy and uneven, and he can't seem to bring himself to care when it breaks over the syllables of her nickname.

     She flings herself into his arms, and they're clinging onto each other desperately, one and then both sets of shoulders shaking with their shared grief. They manage to lead themselves to somewhere soft before they collapse- his bed? Laurens’s? He's not in much of a state to pay attention, too busy trying to flounder among the crashing waves of emotion and whirlwinds of the shatterpoint disorientation.

     Eliza shudders and presses her forehead to his. “Philip,” she manages, and Alexander runs a shaking hand through her hair.

     “Philip,” he agrees hoarsely. And somehow, saying their son's name aloud makes the world shift back into something resembling a semi-correct position.

     They stay like that for hours, maybe, or perhaps just minutes, grieving for their blazing sun snuffed out too fast, grieving for their brilliant son gone too soon. She calls him Hamilton, and he calls her Betsey, right up until they're sliding to her as Liz and he as Alex, and around they go until their grief is poured out and their seams have been resewn.

     John knocks, and he lets himself in at Eliza's hoarse response. “Are you two…”

     “Shatterpoints,” she replies, and Alexander vaguely mimes being split in two. He can't trust his voice to hold steady enough to speak clearly, not now, if it even decided to work at all. There are moments that his words, so constant and careless, can never reach.

     But John and Eliza both have been around him when his never-ending words have run out, and he's been around Eliza when she desperately needs outside support, and he's been around John when he wants to help but doesn't know what to do. So he gestures for them to hug, and is pulled into the embrace himself.

     It's so, so reassuring to have someone silently and lovingly be there for them. Alexander forgets, sometimes, still; he doesn't have to be his own support system anymore. He's not alone. The three of them are there to catch each other when they fall, to help put the pieces back together when they shatter.

    And it's not just the three of them, either, he realizes. It's their friends and families too, past and present and chosen. Everyone has their moments, and when they do, they'll not be left to plummet endlessly.

    The fresh tears in his eyes have a new reason to be there, this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Oof.  
> Happy birthday, Pip.
> 
> my main tumblr: @discount-satan  
> my writing tumblr: @littlelionroar
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
